


Contexts Of Possession

by tielan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Choices, Drama, F/M, Future Fic, Love, Non-Romantic Romance, Oh Look I've Done A Thing Again, Possessive Behavior, Sorry Not Sorry, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 06:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5774548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s not the girl he met on Jakku; not the young woman who returned with Luke to the Resistance, a <i>padawan</i> in training. That woman is dead – as dead as Ben Solo – and yet—</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contexts Of Possession

When she sees the prisoner, Rey’s breath catches in her throat, sharp as knives.

“FN-2187.” Kylo circles behind the torture device, his bootsteps echoing across the metal grating. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”

A fine sheen of sweat covers Finn’s face, and the lingering remains of pain and terror cling to his features, even as the tang of blood-scent wafts through the interrogation chamber. The stormtroopers weren’t gentle with him – the betrayer, one of their own.

But they said he put up no fight; apart from flinching from their fists, he came quietly.

_I’m never going back._

Yet he did once before.

_Childling, it was his idea._

One eyelid lifts, the eye underneath watery and red-veined, struggling to focus. It drifts closed again, and the currents of the Force stir gently in the room.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Kylo’s fingers twitch, and Finn jerks, gasping with pain.

“Stop.” Rey hears her own voice, clear and cold, bouncing off the hard surfaces, scattering through the chamber.

This time, Finn opens both eyes – or tries to. One is swollen too badly to do more than twitch, but his gaze is on her like a caress, and his lips shape a single syllable without breath. “Rey.”

She’s not the girl he met on Jakku; not the young woman who returned with Luke to the Resistance, a _padawan_ in training. That woman is dead – as dead as Ben Solo – and yet—

_I never dreamed there was this much green in the universe._

“No!” Kylo whirls between them, the heavy weight of his longvest swirling to cut off their line of sight. “You are nothing! A traitor stormtrooper who could not complete his first mission! A Jedi who failed his training! A Resistance fighter captured by the First Order and made to give up their secrets!” One gloved hand reaches behind him, groping for hers.

Rey hesitates before taking it. But she wants to see – wants to look at Finn again – and she’s not sure she’ll have the strength to face him alone.

She wants to see what she’s left behind, to look on her failures and do better.

She’s a Skywalker – Vader’s get. She understands that now, as she didn’t then – not really. Then, they were children, thinking as children do: good and bad, right and wrong, Light and Dark.

She knows herself now. Kylo knows her. He understands her pain, as she understands his.

Finn doesn’t.

When Kylo draws her out from behind him, she knows what Finn sees: a Dark Lady to match a Dark Lord.

She expects the sob of breath – the pain of understanding. She expects the bob of the Adam’s apple beneath the edges of his sweat-sodden collar. She doesn’t expect the way his gaze softens, like he’s glad to see her – even as a jailer, even as a Knight of Ren.

She wants to tell him to embrace that pain, to ride it all the way to the heart of darkness that exists in all Force-sensitives, whatever their training and school. She wants to tell him that this is all she is now, that she cut the girl she was out of her heart so she could become this – power to leave others behind, not be left behind; power to be strong, to be more. She wants to wipe away the blood and sweat from his skin and tell him that he, too, can become what he always wanted to be – free of the chains that bind him – if he gives in to the fear and anger within him—

Beneath the grace of his gaze, she doesn’t have the words.

“So you see.” Kylo brings her hand to his lips, presses his mouth to her knuckles. “She’s mine, now.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Finn says, his voice raspy and dry beneath the pain. “But I’m still hers.”

Hers.

It rips through her with all the ferocity of a lightning strike, tearing through the black miasma and finding tender flesh and memories long forgotten.

— _did he hurt you?_ Arms and bodies, warm and solid, tenderness and concern. In the midst of lingering uncertainty and uneasy questions, he’d been an anchor. She was no longer alone, someone would always come back for her. And when Solo quipped, _Escape now, hug later,_ she imagined they had all the later in the world—

— _so this is a well known attraction, then? Finn’s Guided Tour Of The Base?_ And it was kind of nice to see his jaw drop open a little, his gaze drop to her mouth, but not as lovely as the way his hands came carefully around her waist, like he wasn’t sure if she’d step in or step away. _Uh. This is the private—No, I can’t say that with a straight—mmph_ —

— _you’re a Jedi – or going to be. I know...they’ve told me a little about how that works. But Poe – his mom says Skywalker once said that there were things worth fighting for, and that they had to remember them._ One hand covered hers, gentle strength. _Remember me where you’re going, okay?_

And she’d snorted at the seriousness of his expression. _Of course! I would never forget—_

_Hers._

The room surges with emotion – hers? Then Kylo makes a gesture with his free hand, and this time Finn screams, agony ripped from a raw throat, pain beyond bearing.

“Stop!” She grips Kylo’s hand in her own. “Kylo!” The Force strengthens her warning, but he doesn’t—he can’t—he’s too caught up in his own raw jealousy to hear her—

Her hand lifts. Her focus narrows. She applies pressure _there_ and _there—_

He fights her of course, but where he’s more powerful in raw force and pure anger; she’s stronger in subtle ways – control, discipline, determination. When he collapses, she steps over him to the interrogation device.

Finn’s chest is still heaving as she opens the manacles with a flick of her thoughts. “Rey.” His hand reaches for hers, one finger catching the cuff and snagging in her glove, the briefest touch of skin against skin.

_—sand and smoke and sour sweat panic—_

**_—_ ** _oil and metal grating and the echo of arguments overhead—_

_—flavours she’s never imagined, music she’s never heard, the sweet-and-cloying overtones of incense—_

_—blood and fire around them in the corridor, and blood and ice around them in the forest—_

Rey turns her hand so the contact breaks, so she can pull Finn up, out of the chair. He grunts, and heaves himself out, then stumbles one step before she steadies him with the Force.

“Pretty useful.” His lashes lower, then rise, and his shoulders set. Rey feels the change in him, the surge of the Force, sudden depths echoing beneath him, like a cave that's suddenly become a cavern. “Okay,” he says and his voice is rough but steady, “How’re we getting out of here?”

“We?”

He blinks. “You were going to stay here, after helping me escape?”

“I—” Had she even thought about what happened next? Or had she just reacted? Finn is watching her, waiting, as though they have all the time in the world. As thought it doesn’t matter if he lives or dies.

_Hers._

There’s a moment when she revels in the power he’s given her. She could strike him down here and now, and he’d never lift a hand to defend himself, never see the blow coming.

Then she looks into his eyes.

_There may come a moment,_ said Luke (it was still so hard to think of him as _father_ , then – he was _teacher_ and _jedi_ and _master_ , but the warmth and affection of _father_ still belongs to Han Solo), _when you will understand the choices you must make; and it might be something great and terrible and instant, or it may be something that you only realise once its done._

_But how will I know?_

_You won’t, until you reach that moment._

This time, this escape, _she_ takes _his_ hand.

* * *

When they reach freedom, she takes his hand again.

_Hers_.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this came from, or why. But I had pretty much all of it written a week after I saw the movie - except the last three lines - and it stayed without those lines until 20 minutes ago.
> 
> And for those who know me: it seems I've found another independent woman/honourable guy pairing. Whaddya know...? ;)


End file.
